Lifestyle

Works on Scrivener Dam

The National Capital Authority has announced their plans to make some major renovations to Scrivener Dam:

The National Capital Authority (NCA) today announced that major engineering works at Scrivener Dam will commence in the new year. It is anticipated the works will cost in the order of $15 to $20 million.

The works involve progressively replacing 120 anchor bolts, which are part of the flap gate mechanism. The flap gates are opened in flood events to regulate the water level of Lake Burley Griffin.

NCA Chief Executive said the works were identified during an annual safety audit and surveillance inspection of Scrivener Dam.

What’s Your opinion?

Let’s not forget that these bolts are holding up a few million tonnes of water, work like this is never going to be cheap. I would love to see them drain the lake for the works, then we could see all of the hidden “treasures” and clear them out.

Maybe the missing Ruger .22 will be found?

There’s be lots of very interesting things to be found, for sure. Lots of crap, too.

Let’s not forget that these bolts are holding up a few million tonnes of water, work like this is never going to be cheap. I would love to see them drain the lake for the works, then we could see all of the hidden “treasures” and clear them out.

Lowering the lake level is the most suspicious part of this whole thing. I’ve actually read the master technical documents for scrivener dam, they go into remarkable detail about every aspect of the dam’s design, operation and maintenance. Everything from how to enter the water tight gallery and use the internal communications and “dead man” system to how to fit the temporary service gate to allow for repairs to the fish belly flaps. Given what I know, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to lower the level, except to reduce the pressure on the dam and gates.

On a side note, this isn’t an isolated incident for a dam in the ACT. I’ll be posting something more comprehensive though about that when the National Archives has checked and released some documents I’m waiting on.

Let’s not forget that these bolts are holding up a few million tonnes of water, work like this is never going to be cheap. I would love to see them drain the lake for the works, then we could see all of the hidden “treasures” and clear them out.

Yikes!! Let’s see…. if we reserved $5M to buy the 120 bolts and to pay for associated replacement of encasing ‘steel and concrete structures’, the remainder of that $20M figure could employ 120 people (each at a rate of $125,000) to replace one bolt each! Maybe they should get a second quote? 😉

Better still, I am sure the community minded Bunnings would supply the necessary Made in China nuts and bolts at a good discount (provided single units are not required) and the local Lions Clubs could organize a weekend working bee to knock the job over. ABC 666 could organise an OB and Pedal Power could run a sausage sizzle there to raise money for the Bowen Drive freeway. It could be a real fun event. Would save millions.
I wonder how the bolts were sabotaged by extremists who hate dams – has the security video been checked to see if a couple of people with brush cutters were in the vicinity on a certain date?

Interestingly, Scrivener Dam is not covered by the ACT Dam Code which mandates certain plans and surveillance requirements. In fact the code doesn’t even require flood mapping downstream of Scrivener Dam based on outflows from the Googong. The fact that these faults were only found by non-standard checks and had the contractor not been changed, would likely have continued to be ignored by the previous one leaves much to be desired particularly as suburbs never envisaged in the past are now being built downstream in Molonglo.

And apart from the questions hanging over the performance of the previous subcontractor, there is the NCA’s own apparently lax accounting practices.

Surely maintenance work such as this would have been provided for in accumulated depreciation provisions in budgets over every year since accrual accounting was adopted?

Dam managers know that they have infrequent but very expensive maintenance works. I put it that not providing for such works progressively over the life of the asset to be maintained is bordering on mismanagement?

When I was on board for the water authority that owned the Sunshine Coast’s main water supply dam and treatment plant, such depreciation provisions were a thoroughly normal part of annual budgeting.

To see what seems to be management-by-crisis from the NCA on this really makes me wonder about a) the staff practices and b) the performance of the NCA Board.

Let’s not forget that these bolts are holding up a few million tonnes of water, work like this is never going to be cheap. I would love to see them drain the lake for the works, then we could see all of the hidden “treasures” and clear them out.

Interestingly, Scrivener Dam is not covered by the ACT Dam Code which mandates certain plans and surveillance requirements. In fact the code doesn’t even require flood mapping downstream of Scrivener Dam based on outflows from the Googong. The fact that these faults were only found by non-standard checks and had the contractor not been changed, would likely have continued to be ignored by the previous one leaves much to be desired particularly as suburbs never envisaged in the past are now being built downstream in Molonglo.

Yikes!! Let’s see…. if we reserved $5M to buy the 120 bolts and to pay for associated replacement of encasing ‘steel and concrete structures’, the remainder of that $20M figure could employ 120 people (each at a rate of $125,000) to replace one bolt each! Maybe they should get a second quote? 😉